By Kendra Hibbert
July 25, 2003
Although Ray Bradbury has written many memorable novels (the most famous being FARENHEIT 451, the second most famous being SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES) he is, in Sci-fi circles, known more for his astounding short fiction. It’s because of this appropriate reputation that in this second week of Forest of Dead Trees 1st Annual Retro Sci-Fi Summer of Fun (which I keep re-naming) I’ve chosen to focus specifically on the short fiction works of this imaginative author.
Ray Bradbury is a product of what is commonly known as The Golden Age of Science Fiction, generally defined as the years between 1938-1946, when magazines like Weird Tales and Super Science Stories were booming in business. The most prominent of these magazines was John W. Campbell’s Astounding which was publishing the works of Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein and L. Ron Hubbard. Bradbury wasn’t one of Astounding’s regular contributors but he did benefit from the buzz surrounding this new breed of sci-fi writers. Perhaps because of his need to look elsewhere from this magazine he started contributing stories to the non-sci-fi publications like Mademoiselle and The Saturday Evening Post -- earning him a spot in 1945’s book BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES and making him one of the first sci-fi authors to jump the genre gap into the so called ‘real world’ of short fiction.
His prolific output of short stories culminated in his first book in 1947 entitled DARK CARNIVAL – a collection of stories previously published predominantly in Weird Tales (later republished and re-worked into THE OCTOBER COUNTRY). From the response of this first book, his reputation as a poetic Science Fiction writer and his dynamic pitch to editor Walter I. Bradbury (no relation) of Doubleday, Bradbury was given an advance for two books in 1950 – the first being THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES, the second THE ILLUSTRATED MAN. Science Fiction would never be the same.
THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES is made up of 27 stories about Earth’s colonization of Mars and takes place in Bradbury’s future between January 1999 and October 2026. By this time in Bradbury’s career, he had established his quintessential style, best described as fantastical prose poetry caught half-way between innocent fairy tale and terrifying horror. Though Bradbury’s stories exist in worlds characteristically defined as science fiction settings (like Mars, for instance, or The Future) his work is more or less fantasy in nature – that is, he cares less about keeping the stories he writes realistic and scientifically possible and more about using otherworldly elements to reflect human nature back at us. “Ylla”, for instance, the second story in CHRONICLES, introduces us to the Martian Peoples – a golden-skinned telepathic race who live in harmony with nature and prize art and culture above all else in their society. But rather than focus on how much better this race is over our own, Bradbury uses this introductory story to focus on the failing marriage of a Martian man and woman and how jealousy leads to the death of the first humans to land on the fourth planet. Though each story focuses on a new situation, new characters with unique personalities and all could more or less stand on their own, there is an overall arc to the stories in this book which uses all the conventional tools of novels like foreshadowing and thematic progression to narrate the eventual outcome of Earth’s colonization. Written in Post-War America with the threat of Atomic War looming, there’s an underlying sense of doom to these stories, combined with Bradbury’s natural suspenseful writing style it makes for a gripping book and a fascinating read.
Bradbury’s second collection THE ILLUSTRATED MAN is again a compilation of stories previously published in magazines like Thrilling Wonder and Startling Stories strung together in an ARABIAN KNIGHTS-esque scenario in which an un-named narrator watches the eccentric tattoos of The Illustrated Man come to life and tell 18 separate stories. There are several classic tales in this collection like “The Veldt” about the increasingly malevolent creatures living in the children’s virtual reality nursery wall (the first story to mention this kind of technology) and “Rocket Man” (rumored to be the inspiration behind the Elton John song) about a mother and son’s lonely days spent pining for their absent astronaut husband/father. THE ILLUSTRATED MAN has fortunately never been out of print since it was first published in 1951 which means there’s absolutely no excuse for not reading this book - Classic Bradbury, Classic Science Fiction and Classic Storytelling all rolled into one. It’s also a great way to introduce yourself to the Bradbury style. If you’re looking for a book to launch a lifetime of admiration for this author - this is the one.
Outside of these two classic books, Bradbury’s multitude of science fiction stories have resulted in dozens of collections and dozens more collections of collected stories previously published in other collections - sometimes combining one or two books sometimes breaking up stories from their original published books and merging them with others. GOLDEN APPLES OF THE SUN, A MEDICINE FOR MELANCHOLY, R IS FOR ROCKET, S IS FOR SPACE, THE TOYNBEE CONVECTOR, and I SING THE BODY ELECTRIC! are just a few of the classic books of Bradbury’s science fiction work. Outside of the genre, Bradbury put out DANDELION WINE in 1957 – a book based on his adventures as a boy growing up in Illinois which, like MARTIAN CHRONICLES, is broken up into a series of short stories. Typical of Bradbury, there are one or two references to the fantastical but for the most part this is straight (though exaggerated for dramatic effect) autobiography. As a tribute to the power of Bradbury’s writing, even though this collection strays away from the Science Fiction it was still the muse behind the naming of the Dandelion Crater on the Moon – evidence that his works inspire his audience like few other writers can.
There are of course other writings of Bradbury outside of short fiction, like (as mentioned above) his well known novels. He has also put out a few collections of poetry (a medium that seems self-evident given his style of writing) and written a number of plays. Bradbury’s short stories were adapted by him and others for a few episodes of classic science fiction TV shows like ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS and a single TWILIGHT ZONE episode as well as a bunch of radio plays for shows like X-1 and DIMENSION-X. But though these works other mediums are great by themselves, short fiction is really where Bradbury shines.
Reading his most recent collection of short stories, ONE MORE FOR THE ROAD (published last year), you can see just how far his career has gone from his early years. He is definitely a more professional and confident writer than in his early works. Often in the twilight years of a writer’s career the inspiration and emotion from their earlier brilliant writings is long gone to be replaced by technique and form. However, with Bradbury, even though he’s matured and mastered his art, his writing is still as poetic and haunting, his stories still as fresh and unique and he’s still managed to hold onto the playful side to his writing even at the ripe old age of 83. Let’s hope he has at least 20 more years of short fiction left in him.
Next column: Continuing with the Retro Sci-Fi theme (which I’ve now extended for another month) I’ve set the Wayback Machine to 19th century France to look at the Grandpappy of Popular Sci-fi -- Jules Verne.
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